Familiar Face

He was using every opportunity to train in Swordsmanship, as it was speeding up the Acting Method for the Warrior tremendously, and with the current tempo, he predicted that within a few months, it would be fully digested. 

Valkorion was aware that being in the Valyria, was a prime opportunity to gather strength before the Doom and destruction of the one of the few Extraordinary Civilizations in the known world.

Aside from training, he also spent a lot of time studying because knowledge was power, and this was also a good opportunity to learn about how the world worked and how things were here. 

Learning for him was almost equally enjoyable, like training with the sword because, surprisingly, you're not, but this mansion that he practically inherited from the Tenebraenys Family was brimming with an enormous library. 

From there one he was able to learn much about the state of the world, about the Beyonders, the history of the world, various Orthodox Churches and Secret Organizations of Beyonders that existed within the world.

For example, within Westeros, there were several Orthodox Churches reigning, be it the Church of the Seven Gods that was prominent within the Kingdoms of Reach, Riverlands and Vale, or the Church of the Storms that was prominent within the Kingdom of Stormlands. 

Church of the Drowned God in the Iron Islands or Parthenon worshipped the Old Gods that ruled the Kingdom of North and also had some influence within the Beyond the Wall. Aside from these, there was a bunch of Secret Organizations running here and there in the Westeros.

Essos was more complicated because there were more faiths, and nobody could tell if the various cults were worshipping actual Gods or just some extraordinarily powerful Beyonder or so... 

Nobody could tell as the number was too high. 

Either way, Valkorion then returned back to the library after he finished the training season in the Juyo Sword Style.

The mansion's library was a quiet, solemn room filled with towering bookshelves that stretched to the ceiling, packed with ancient tomes and scrolls. Because this was one of the places that should have served as a sanctuary for the direct descendants of the Tenebraenys Family, the library was huge and packed with a lot of books and precious things. 

A large, ornately carved desk was stationed in the center, covered with parchment, quills, and an assortment of decorations.

The air smelled of old parchment, leather, and a faint hint of incense. Rich, dark wood paneling covered the walls, and thick, embroidered rugs made from the best silk covered the floor, muffling footsteps. A few deep armchairs are scattered around, perfect for long, contemplative reading sessions by the fire.

This was one of the places within the mansion where Valkorion was spending most of his time; if he was, to be honest, then it was placed where he was spending most of the time, because he was even often sleeping in this place if he fell asleep during the time when he was reading.

Unfortunately for him, even though this place contained a tremendous amount of knowledge, there were not many pieces about the deeper secrets of the world of the Beyonders or anything like that.

Such things were too precious to be put down in a place like this causally, so Valkorion predicted that they must have been locked in the main residence of the House Tenebraenys within the capital Valyria. 

And that one was already robbed by other people.

Still, he was rather content with what he had because even this was better than nothing, and he could obtain a decent education just by going through these books. To become an accomplished Beyonder, one didn't need only raw power but also the corresponding knowledge about the world and its deeper mysteries. 

Right now, he was in the library and searching for the mentions about the Painted Mountains within the library. Fortunately enough, he would be able to find something about the Painted Mountains that could help him locate the place where the goblins had found the armband made from Imperial Gold.

Unfortunately, even after a few hours of searching, he didn't find much, aside from the mentions of some Tomb located within the Painted Mountains, or rather it were the rumors of the Tomb, but nothing concrete.

That was already a good start; he was able to get the approximate location of it, and surprisingly or not, it wasn't that far from the place where he encountered the goblins. With that being found, he decided that he needed to return to the Painted Mountains as soon as possible to explore the thing. 

According to the books, there should be some treasures in there, hopefully it would be true and not just some baseless rumors.

***

Next Day, between Fortress City Cartharys and Painted Mountains

Immediately on the morning of the next day, Valkorion left for the Painted Mountains, and because the Cartharys were just a few kilometers away from one of the main entrances to the Painted Mountains, he was rather quick to arrive at the place. 

In one of the entrances that he was using right now to enter the dammed mountain range, he noticed that this time, he wasn't probably hunting alone within this part of the Painted Mountains, because he found the corpses of several tens of goblins, each one of them was killed instantly with arrow to the head.

'Ashe...'

Within the Cartharys, there were not that many of the powerful adventurers that would be dwelling in the Painted Mountains on a daily basis. There was only one adventurer in the Cartharys who was such a fearsome and skilled archer to be able to dispatch several goblins within a few moments with a bow.

Ashe, the Frost Archer, as they called her.

He was rather acquainted with her because they were one of the few adventurers who were frequently going into the Painted Mountains. Another thing that they had in common was the fact that Ashe wasn't Valyrian but a foreigner, and Valkorion was the only Valyrian from the half.

After checking on the killed goblins, he continued deeper into the Painted Mountains for some time, until he encountered another group of killed goblins in exactly identical fashion like the previous ones. 

It wasn't long until he saw the familiar figure of Asha, who was standing several tens of meters away from him, around several tens of corpses of goblins that were lying on the earth, every single one of them being killed by a single arrow.

She was a slender, pale-skinned woman with blue eyes and long white hair. As usual, she also wore light, elegant robes with a distinct palette of black, dark blue, and gold. In her right hand, she was holding an ornamental-looking bow, which was her main weapon.

As he entered the area, she was able to notice him as she looked in his way, with her bow ready and arrow prepared to be fired when things devolved into a fight. 

When she realized that it was Valkorion, she relaxed a bit, but not immediately, as they were staring at each other for some time. 

"Are you following me, Nerona?"

She asked skeptically with her usual stoic facade, not changing her stance as she continued staring at him because it was still possible that he was here to kill her for something. It wasn't really unheard of adventurers acting as assassins or something, especially for the more unscrupulous ones that were not close to taking assassination requests.

Or for those who were just greedy for the possessions of the other adventurers.